This is a translation and update of the original post from Nov 14, 2020.
Last time I stopped with the question:, “How can we organize society so it encourages us to maximize not profit, but reciprocity, cooperation, and care?
I assume there is more than one way, and that the starting point I am suggesting may seem puzzling. It is certainly not one common or even recognized in our society, and perhaps there are more suitable and easier approaches for us.
And yet, we are among the few societies throughout human existence that reject this approach. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the society that rejects animism is the one on the brink of destroying the biosphere.
Animism is the approach that sees the entire universe and everything in it as having intelligence and value. In English we can say that there are many kinds of people, not all of whom are human. Plant people and mushroom people and bird people and mountain people and wind people and house people and star people. This means that it is possible and obligatory to be in relationship and communication with many more types of ‘people’ than we are used to. There is also life within life, just as cells and microorganisms live within our bodies, and we live within a biosphere which is also a living entity, each with its own intelligence and agency, both within and containing others. We do not all have the same type of consciousness, but we are all, in the words of celebrated animist author David Abram, “awake, alive, and aware.”
This is hard for us to wrap our heads around. “Does that mean lettuce or rocks should have the same rights as humans?” “Am I supposed to believe that my mug has intelligence and agency?” “Should we give voting rights to empty seats?”
Not exactly. First of all, animism isn’t a belief, it is lived experience. A tree’s intelligence and needs are not the same as those of a human being, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist or are important. What the animistic framework demands is for us to be in relationship and not take the nonhumans for granted.
“But to be in touch with everything?! There are too many!?”
Yes, there are too many. No one can or is required to be in intimate relations all the time with anything. It’s not possible. Some distinctions are needed. But that is different from considering only humans.
One of the strongest insights I heard in the context of animism was from Daniel Foor, who suggests that some of our culture’s biggest problems stem from the fact that we produce so many objects that are essentially orphans. No one cares about them, so instead of taking care of our things, we throw them away, creating vast amounts of waste . In contrast, when I eat from dishes that my daughter made by hand, each is a piece of art with individual character and beauty, the product of time, attention, and care, in addition to material. This is such a different experience, setting a table with dishes that are not duplicates, each one unique and valued. Each one is beautiful to me and my favorite. I don’t need many, and there is no desire to replace them.
I don’t suggest that people start by seeing their silverware as alive and intelligent, but to start where it’s simple. Begin with what comes naturally to you: a tree, an animal, birds, winds, the returning rain, the new sprouts. Begin with what you can easily perceive as alive. You can start to relate, say hello, approach with reverence, be interested in their well-being. You can go outside and notice how our feeling of being alive changes when our senses perceive that we are surrounded by other ‘people’, our nonhuman relatives.
Now, after the first rain, everything awakens and stirs, beginning to grow and nurture each other. Only we humans try to separate ourselves from the circle of life, spraying the exquisite edible plants that sprout, flattening the wild fields, too stingy to even return our excrement to the soil.
But the invitation remains open. Go outside and notice how alive we feel surrounded by life. Start to be in conscious relationship with the myriad and diverse nonhumans we meet. It feels a bit strange at first, but in time we find ourselves part of a much bigger family. Our intelligence is not so unique – as all other human societies knew, those who did not destroy the entire biosphere, who knew how to carefully navigate its relational complexity.
Animism is a big subject, far bigger than one workshop, much less one post. Begin: the journey lasts lifetimes.